LA Clippers: Predicting Marcus Morris Sr.’s stats for next season
By Evan Desai
Marcus Morris Sr. needs to have a big year for the LA Clippers next season.
He had a very good year this past season, and has really established himself as one of the better forwards in this league who can be a big-time impact player for a championship caliber team.
He’ll have more of an opportunity to put up big numbers due to his fellow frontcourt teammate Kawhi Leonard likely being out for a significant portion of the season.
Marcus Morris Sr. needs to be expected to put up even better numbers this year for the LA Clippers.
Marcus Morris Sr. scored 13.4 points per game this year for the LA Clippers. Expect a jump in that number. The last time he wasn’t on a team with Leonard, he put up 19.6 points per game.
I don’t know that he’ll put up 19 or more this time, due to the amount of playmakers that the Clippers still have on their roster. I do, however, expect him to up his average from this year to about 18 points.
His three-point shooting won’t be going anywhere. He shot 47.3% from beyond the arc this year (second in the NBA), and hit 10 of 24 threes in the playoff games without Leonard that he was healthy for.
He’s proven that taking away Kawhi doesn’t take away his stroke, so I expect him to shoot at least 45% from deep this upcoming year. Considering Kawhi took 4.9 threes per game, more threes are going to be taken by really anyone who can shoot the rock on the Clips.
Some of those 4.9 per game are going to go to Morris. He’ll score more points this year.
I’m not sure his field goal percentage will be much better than the 47.3% he had this year. Interestingly, he had the same field goal percentage as his three-point percentage.
He took so many threes that it was the number one weapon in his arsenal, and he didn’t score from inside as much as he maybe would have liked. Considering that I expect him to shoot even more three-point shots this year, I don’t think he’s going to be able to go for many high-percentage shots inside. His field goal percentage will be around 47% again.
As much as I like Morris’ skillset, I need to see him get better as a rebounder. He’s not on a good rebounding team, but still averaged just 4.1 per game last year as the number one power forward on the squad. I want to see a big improvement there, but unfortunately don’t see it happening.
I think he’ll improve to about five per game, but that’s it. He didn’t improve much at all as a rebounder in the playoffs, averaging just 4.3 per game, and didn’t take advantage of the higher volume of opportunities with Kawhi out (just four postseason rebounds per game without Kawhi).
Next. 3 goals for Reggie Jackson. dark
Morris will improve next year, but I want to see a big jump in his rebounding, as the Clips were in the bottom half of the league in terms of rebounds per game. His offensive numbers, though, will undoubtedly take a step, and I can’t wait to see it.